The Obamas: Conspicuous Sacrifice vs. Conspicuous Consumption

A recurring theme of the Obama White House is "sacrifice." The president has repeatedly stressed the need for us to tighten our belts. He has informed us, "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ..." During the campaign, his wife told us that we have to compromise and sacrifice for one another in order to get things done. Shortly after the election, the president said that "[e]verybody's going to have to give. Everybody's going to have to have some skin in the game." 

This emphasis on "sacrifice" is presented as a simple matter of justice. We are told that we live in a nation that comprises a small fraction of the earth's population, yet we consume a disproportionate share of the world's resources.

The Obamas do not expect us to sacrifice alone. They believe that they have established a long pattern of self-sacrifice. According to Michelle Obama, one of the Obamas' first major decisions after graduating from college was, "Do I go to Wall Street and make money, or do I work for the people?" As we all know Barack, decided to "work for the people." During the campaign, Michelle informed six women in the playroom of the Zanesville Ohio Day Nursery, "We left corporate America." She advised these working-class women to do the same: "Don't go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers." According to Michelle, these are "the careers we need." She discouraged them from going into "corporate law or hedge-fund management." She warned these women, however, that their salaries would respond negatively if they made that choice. 

After attaining the White House, the Obamas have continued to sacrifice, with a notable example being their trip to Denmark in order to secure the 2016 Olympics for Chicago. Michelle explained, "As much of a sacrifice as people say this is for me or Oprah or the president to come for these few days, so many of you in this room have been working for years to bring this bid home." The Obamas appear to be bearing up, however. They are tough. As Michelle told her Zanesville audience, "So I tell people, 'Don't cry for me.'" In spite of their apparently sincere belief that they are sacrificing "for the people," Michelle's behavior occasionally seems to belie this idea. This is most obvious in her thirst for fashion.

Michelle attended a luncheon for the homeless wearing a pair of $540 Lanvin sneakers. On a trip to Russia, she was seen sporting what was thought to be a $5,950 VBH alligator manila clutch. The White House protested that she was actually carrying the $875 VBH patent leather clutch. This is perhaps another example of self-sacrifice. She has ordered a pair of thigh-high leather boots from Robert Clergerie, a famous French designer. On her trip to China she stayed in an $8,400 per night hotel suite.  Had Governor Sarah Palin made any of these purchases, she would have been criticized on the front pages of the major newspapers. Their treatment of Michelle Obama is considerably kinder. She is seen as a fashion icon.

For a couple with a preference for $100-a-pound Wagyu beef, it is inconsistent to claim that "we can't eat as much as we want." Apparently the president's admonition that we can't "keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times" does not apply to him. If his senior adviser David Axelrod is to be believed, the president prefers a warm environment. Axelrod is reported by the New York Times as describing the temperature in the Oval Office as rather temperate: "He's from Hawaii," Axelrod said. "He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there." The president's years in Chicago apparently were not sufficient to acclimatize him to the cold.

The Obamas have every right to dress as they please. The have every right to spend their money as they choose. However, they cannot spend lavishly while contending that they are sacrificing for "the people." The majority of "the people" know about sacrifice. A Zogby poll reported that 70 percent of households are forgoing movies and restaurants. Are the Obamas? Perhaps the pièce de résistance was a statement by Michelle after a party for the "first dog," Bo: "We had a really sweet celebration -- [Bo] got a doghouse cake made out of veal stuff and he had his brother Cappy come over and we had party hats." Poor Bo. I am certain that he would have preferred Wagyu steak.

This elite behavior is described by Victor Kravchenko in his book, I Chose Freedom.  He states, “I found myself among men who could eat ample and dainty food in full view of starving people not only with a clear conscience but with a feeling of righteousness.”  To describe the Obamas as nouveau riche would be an insult to the nouveau riche.

How extensive was Western complicity in Soviet crimes?

            Diana West has again raised the question of Western complicity in Soviet crimes in "American Betrayal: Nuremberg and the Nazi-Soviet Pact."  This is the 75th anniversary of the Nazi-Soviet Pact.  This particular case involves the suppression by the American and British authorities of evidence contained in the secret protocol of the Hitler-Stalin Pact.  It was a widely known historical fact that the Soviets had come to an agreement with the Hitler regime to divide Poland between them.  The German invasion of Poland was the immediate cause of the Second World War.  It was followed two weeks later by the Russian invasion of their agreed upon eastern part of Poland.

            It was necessary to suppress this evidence because the German high command  was being charged with “conspiracy to wage aggressive war.”  It would damage the image of the Nuremberg trail as a "model of international justice" if it was pointed out that the Soviets, sitting in judgment of the Germans, were themselves guilty of the same crime.  The Soviets originally planned to charge the Germans with committing the Katyn Forest Massacre.  This was the execution in Katyn Forest and other locations of 25,700 Polish prisoners captured by the Soviet.  Their case was so weak that they thought it wise to not include it.  The whole proceeding was described by Judge Learned Hand  as "A step backward in international law."

            The Western officials had good reason to protect their Soviet "allies."  They were trying to maintain the good will of their Russian counterparts.  They also did not want other matter to come to light.  Diana West mentions the forced repatriation of over two million eastern Europeans to the Soviet Union.  But there is much more they wanted to conceal.  The Western role in the slave trade and the engineered famine are the two most indefensible policies.  Germany was transformed into a paradise for looters.  Even the chief U.S. Prosecutor and Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson took part in this orgy of looting, obtaining two grand pianos at bargain basement prices.    

            She points out that the perpetrators of these crimes were "allowed to slip away unrecognized, unjudged, unpunished."  Why would these criminals, whose death toll exceeded the Nazis, be allowed to escape judgment after the fall of the Soviet Union?  Diana West provides a partial answer.  The decisive opposition to a Nuremberg style trial came from the West.  What did the leaders of the West have to hide?

Is There An The Invisible Man

Diana West has opened a can of worms.  Few people are interested in investigating this further.  Some powerful people are interested in closing this can as quickly as possible.  One commentator remarked, "think about what exactly would unravel, should the official version of events regarding the war be exposed as lies and propaganda?"  This could be scary.  Diana only scratched the surface of this dilemma.  She mentions 500 Soviet agents in the U.S. government.  Vasili Mitrokhin  lists about 1,000. There are several subjects she deals with only superficially (U.S. POWs, slave labor, engineered famine.)  You can only cover so much material in 400 pages.   

Now to the "Invisible Man."  It is quite possible that after careful consideration writers and editors decided that publishing favorable articles about American Betrayal would not be wise.  On the other hand it is possible that they produced their work and were quickly contacted by someone who informed them that they had made a mistake (you might call this a conspiracy.)  David Horowitz published an article by Mark Tapson favorable to the book.  It was quickly withdrawn and the author, a Frontpage staff writer, labeled an "incompetent."  Clare Lopez wrote an article favorably mentioning American Betrayal on the Gatestone site.  Apparently, Gatestone's editor, Nina Rosenwald, was initially impressed with the article.   Shortly after that the article was pulled and Clare Lopez was given a pink slip by Gatestone.  Andrew McCarthy wrote a somewhat balanced article on the book and was chastised by Conrad Black.  He responded by praising Black and asserting that he was misunderstood.

Diana West's responses to her critics have been published in Gates of Vienna and Breitbart.  Few other publications have covered the controversy.  The case of The American Thinker is unique however.  It has published several articles dealing with American Betrayal that have been critical.  Yet its editor gave what amounted to a refusal to Diana West's request to respond. 

The problem Diana's critics have is that their position is untenable.  Diana West's supporters believe in "conspiracy theories."   As all informed "experts" know the Communists never conspired.  They may have sat around and drank vodka, ate borsch and chatted, but they never conspired.  I offer two quotes that sum up the oppositions position.  Harvey Klehr speaking for himself and John Haynes: "In our more than twenty years of archivally based research on Soviet espionage in America, we have uncovered ample documentation of Soviet intelligence obtaining American technical, military, and diplomatic information but very little indicating successful policy manipulation."  Conrad Black has written: "There is not one scintilla of acceptable historical evidence that the supposed 500 Soviet agents, 'many of them operating at the very highest levels of the federal government,' existed in such numbers or influenced American foreign policy in these most important matters at all, or that any actual policymaker from Roosevelt down thought of anything except the national interest of the United States and the desirability of the reign of democracy within countries and of international law among them."

In response I would like to offer The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy.  I am not trying to promote the sale of my book.  Please get a copy from the interlibrary loan.  It details extensive Soviet influence on American policy.  It has footnotes and even a bibliography.